


We're Merely Mammals

by Aerica_Menai



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Character Study, F/M, aromantic heterosexual!Phryne, heteroromantic asexual!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 13:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18592213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerica_Menai/pseuds/Aerica_Menai
Summary: This is a character study of Phryne and Jack, looking at all the pieces that might add up to their (headcanoned) romantic and sexual orientations.





	We're Merely Mammals

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, the ever-amazing and irreplaceable grayraincurtain cheerleaded me past writer's block and beta'd - thank you <3
> 
> Title from the song Let’s Misbehave, written by Cole Porter in 1927 and sung by Phryne and Jack at the end of S2E11 of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

Phryne, as Jack had commented quite often, was not a romantic woman. Nor, as she had reminded Lin, was she the marrying type. What she had neglected to tell either man straight out was she was not a fan of romance. Oh, she could enjoy the trappings of romance – dinners, candlelight, flirting – but only as long as they were foreplay, leading up to the main event. By themselves they were neither enjoyable nor all that entertaining; draining was the main word that came to mind – forcing oneself to maintain the illusion for too long was just too much. She had no interest in marriage because of her lack of interest in love – she didn’t want to tie someone into a loveless marriage no matter how much she might like them as a person…or enjoy sleeping with them (hello, Lin). 

She had thought she was in love once – only once – with DuBois, but the outcome of that horrible situation helped her realize that no, she did not know what love was, and after an experience like that, she had no intention of exploring it further. The only (surprising) exception to this rule – the only man who even came close to tempting her into considering slowly dipping her toes into the large, disturbingly murky body of water that was romance – was Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, the only (non-homosexual) man in Australia not interested in her body; a most puzzling situation. It wasn’t that he didn’t find her intriguing, because his lingering eyes told otherwise; they just didn’t linger where she expected them to – on her neck, her legs, her chest – but rather on her eyes, her mouth, her hair. Phryne knew that Jack had no idea that those glances made her more uncomfortable than the lusty glances most men threw at her – those, she could respond to; Jack’s more romantic glances? She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with those, and she didn’t have the faintest idea of how to even begin to explain that to Jack.

Mac, of course, already knew. Phryne couldn’t keep a secret from Mac to save her life, and her romantic inclinations - or entire lack thereof - were hardly going to be a sticking point, considering Mac’s own inclinations. If Dot ever realized how deep Phryne’s aversion to romance truly ran... she would like to think that Dot, even if she didn’t truly understand, would simply accept it as one of Phryne’s quirks - one that was perhaps stranger than many of her other ones, but still a part of her and not something to try and “fix” about her. Mr. Butler would probably just smile and say that it takes all kinds to make the world go ‘round, and who was he to judge? Cec and Bert would, like Dot, just accept it. Jane... Jane might identify with Phryne’s description more than she expected and figure out something that she had never quite been able to put a name to before; that, or she would start researching historical figures she thought Phryne would identify with, to help her feel less alone; perhaps both. Only time would tell. 

But of all the people Phryne had considered telling - and whose possible reactions she had imagined - Jack was the one she felt the most unsure of. He was the one she had the hardest time reading, and was therefore unsure if he would accept her with open arms in his own quiet way (the best possible reaction, the one she imagined on her best days) or let his often conservative nature dictate that she was an unnatural being who must be immediately and irrevocably removed from his life - after all, what kind of person was incapable of love? (This was the worst possible reaction, the one she couldn’t help picturing on her worst days). Logically, she knew that it was incredibly unlikely for Jack to be so close-minded and petty, especially after all of the time they’d spent together – that she was imagining a worst-case scenario that was almost certainly never going to happen – but she also knew that she could never be sure until it was too late, until the genie had been released from the bottle and changed Jack’s view of her forever.

Most men in her life came and went – including her father – but Jack… other than that one time they had truly fought (which he had admitted he deeply regretted and never intended to repeat), Jack stayed. She was afraid that this was the one quirk that might drive him away, and she couldn’t bear it if that happened again. Between Jack’s previous, almost perfect record of staying – always being there when she needed him – and his apparent disinterest in much past flirting… Jack was special.

*~*

Jack had never seen himself having children, much to his wife’s – or ex-wife’s, now – dismay. It was true even before the war, but not wanting to bring children into this world after his experiences there – and how much they had changed him – were certainly compelling arguments. She said that wasn’t the reason she decided to file for divorce…but Jack knew it was a large part of it. Another large part of it were some of his more peculiar behaviors – ones that he had prevented himself from showing Rose before the war, but afterwards…afterwards he was too tired for pretenses and the war gave him the perfect excuse, so he used it. To know that she blamed the war for his own failings as a person wounded him more deeply than he was willing to admit. Phryne, though… her calm acceptance helped soothe his bitterness, at least a little.

Sometimes he wondered if even Phryne’s liberal-mindedness would balk at his…lack of desire. He knew his conservative ex-wife and her father would never have understood; Concetta, too, would almost certainly struggle to understand, if not outright misread his confession as a way to avoid accepting her feelings. Hugh, though – Hugh was a wild card. He could see it going either way – Hugh falling back on his staid upbringing or Hugh’s respect and admiration for him (as well as considerable liberalizing contact with Phryne and Dot) overcoming his first reaction of rejection. Phryne was more like Hugh – he could see both good outcomes and bad as equally possible, depending on the day. He’d like to think that her open-mindedness would extend to even his differences…but he didn’t think he could survive being wrong.

Her joie de vivre, her irrepressible enjoyment of life and all its pleasures both great and small, were reminders that while he often lived in a world of darkness, populated by the worst of humanity’s vices and evils, there was still joy to be found – Phryne always could find it. Her passion for justice and doing the right thing (…even when it meant bending the rules) might have irked him at first, but they quickly reminded him of his own days starting out on the force, and soon he was far more likely to follow her way of thinking than he was to stick to strict rules and regulation, as he had before.

That one time he had thought that her careless driving had finally doomed his personal sun to be buried deep underground… he hoped to never sink to those depths of despair again. Trying to distance himself from her, to spare himself that potential pain, somehow left him even more wretched than before. He was a quiet Pluto suddenly no longer orbiting her bright sun, and he felt cut adrift. Her return was chaotic and messy; once again adding color to his life and reminding him of why he was so content to be in her orbit… because Phryne was special.


End file.
